


Life In Wartime

by thinkpink20



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkpink20/pseuds/thinkpink20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the end of the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life In Wartime

Ringo goes into the studio late, dragging his heels. Mo looks at him over the breakfast table, Zak climbing up his leg, and gives him one of her 'I wish I could help' smiles. She does that a lot lately. 

The drive in is mad; some cyclist has come off his bike and the irate London traffic is tooting it's horns and leaning out of it's windows. And Ringo feels guilty for not minding, wants the police and the ambulance men to get on with their job as thoroughly and slowly as possible - the longer it takes to get into work, the better.

But eventually of course, they move. The bobbies with their helmets start waving people around the scene and Ringo raises a polite, customary hand to the people waiting on the other side of the road. 

Then outside, he talks to the Apple scruffs for far longer than usual, autographing and asking about their day. The door of Abbey Road looms like a black hole in his peripheral vision and for as long as he can, he holds out from falling into it. Eventually they let him go - the scruffs are probably bored, he's been there that long, chatting like an old bloke about his time in the war and tiring everyone out. He pushes the door, goes inside.

In the studio, it's quiet. Not 'empty' quiet, but 'strained' quiet. He looks to George, who grimaces once, goes back to his guitar.

Great. Well, at least he missed the argument.

He doesn't bother saying hello, simply sits at his drums and starts to edge out a beat; anything to fill the quiet. Paul is hunched over, scribbling something down furtively, John is whispering to Yoko in the corner. George Martin is nodding to something in his headphones in the sound booth.

Together alone, Ringo thinks.

It feels _painful,_ all this. It's like someone took the Mona Lisa and splashed paint across the front of her face - red paint, loud and angry. It's like writing in black ink all over the Statue Of Liberty and spraying Buckingham Palace psychedelic orange. He hasn't just watched his friends crumble - his _brothers_ \- but he has watched a national treasure burn too. On the inside they have never really felt the full weight of _what_ they are, what they _mean_ to a decade, but now Ringo does.

Because when something you're on the inside of self-destructs, you step out of it. Only trouble is, he continues to watch it blow from there too, in small, excruciating explosions. Not one great big bang, a clean, short affair, but a messy, long parting of the ways. And he feels it all, deep in his chest and in his stomach every time he looks at them.

"Alright, Rings?" John asks, ruffling his hair as he gets up and goes past. Yoko follows him. He's going to the toilet - Ringo still thinks that's a bit weird.

"Johnny-boy!" he says, with his best put-on smile. Before looking back to his drums, he glances across at Paul. Sure enough, he's been watching; sees Ringo notice him, gives one small wave (hiding behind that beard) and goes back to his song.

Ringo wants to knock their heads together.

But of course it's not just that, it's not just _them._ It's George too, and even him. One night, when it first started to crumble, Mo had told him in bed, running a hand through his hair, "It's not you; don't ever think it's you." But of course it is - it's all of them.

A stark image comes back to him, almost like a grainy scene from A Hard Days Night - the four of them sitting in the back of a van, on the road to somewhere and alone, because it was early on and Neil was busy driving. They were playing cards, jostled around hopelessly by the van's poor suspension and the crappy, northern roads - spending more time picking the cards up off the floor and laughing than actually _playing_ anything. It could have been a scene from any day (they spent so much time playing bloody cards) but something sets it apart for Ringo.

It was the first time he _noticed._

John and Paul were _flirting._ And then as soon as he'd seen it, he couldn't un-see it. 

He doesn't know how far it got. Still wonders, sometimes, but he's too afraid to talk to them about a backbeat these days, never mind an illicit love affair. He suspects it went far though, grew and grew and grew until it fizzled out; that's the way they do things around here - touring, acid, psychedelia, India. A great wash of something and then just... nothing. Ringo has never been a man of extremes, which is probably why he hates it so much.

The stupid thing is that he's never even spoken to George about it. Deep down he supposes that must say something about his relationship with George too, that maybe it has self destructed in the same way Paul's has with John. They used to talk about things, but now Ringo just doesn't feel like George would _want_ his confidence. But if he didn't feel like he was suddenly imposing on lives that used to be practically his own, Ringo thinks he would go up to George and say, 'Do you think it was all because of sex? Is that why they were close? Is that why they're not now?' 

It drives him mad, not being able to talk to anyone about it. John is like a wall now, a wall with Yoko sitting on top. And Paul is hurt, so he's vanished into himself like he always does. George is just... George wants no part of it. Ringo feels that, understands somehow. It's like that when cracks start to show, all the old grievances are pulled out of the cupboard, polished off, put on the sideboard for all to see.

And he can't ask Mo. This is a Beatle thing (even though there doesn't even appear to be any Beatles anymore, not for long, anyway) and she wouldn't understand the sharp, subtle nuances. She wasn't there in the van all those times, on the planes, in the hotel rooms.

And just as he is missing Brian, thinking that Brian would be the _perfect_ person to talk to about this, John comes back in the room. Ringo waits for the tiny scrape of small sandals on the floor that indicates Yoko but - 

He turns around. She seems to have gone.

"We going to go for this one, then?" John asks, holding up a piece of paper Ringo can't see. He doesn't care what it is though, he'd play anything now, if they're all joining in.

"Sounds -" great, he's about to say, when Paul pipes up.

"I'm working on this now," he says. "You go ahead without me."

Immediately Ringo stills, feels George still beside him like children tensing in the back of the car when they hear they father say to their mother, "Are you questioning my driving?" Ringo wonders if it's too late to announce he's parched and that he's off to get a cup of tea. It is.

"Well put the fucking thing down, Paul - go back to it later."

"I'm _in the middle of something,"_ Paul replies, and Ringo wants to roll his eyes at how childish it is. At how childish _they_ are. The stupid thing is that they're _not_ kids any longer, but it's only now they've started to act that way.

"Well I was _in the middle_ of something earlier and you wanted to jam Maxwell's Silver fucking Hammer but I didn't complain, did I?"

Paul looks up slowly and Ringo feels like he can see another piece of him falling off. He wants to save it, knows he can't.

"That's funny," Paul says, "I could have sworn I heard you muttering about my 'granny music' to your shadow back there."

And Ringo turns around and sees Yoko standing in the doorway, slipping between the parting in her hair. 

"Fuck off, stop being such a fucking _kid,_ Paul." And Ringo shivers to hear John say Paul's name like that. It used to be said in love, in jest, in teasing. Now it's only ever said in scorn.

"Me?" Paul asks, throwing down his pencil and the paper he's been scribbling on. "Me? I'm not the one who needs a fucking _mother,_ John."

There is a brief moment of silence - and glaring; Ringo can't help but stare at them throwing daggers at one another, it's like being sat on the iceberg watching the Titanic go down. If you can hear the screams, your eyes are drawn to the pale, bare arms slipping beneath the water.

After a second, George groans and slips from his seat. "Fuck this," he says, shaking his head in a bored sort of way and goes out. Still they stare at each other, and Ringo wonders whether he should go too.

"Jealousy is such a nasty little bloody emotion, isn't it, Paul?" John suddenly says, voice low and dangerous. "You should stop it, it makes you ugly."

"Well, maybe we'll start fucking getting on again then, John - you like ugly these days, don't you?"

And at that, Ringo steps down from his drums. He doubts they'll see him go. "Bathroom," he says politely to Yoko at her passes her at the door, though why he has to excuse himself to her, he's not sure.

As soon as he gets to the toilets, he locks the door and goes to the sinks. His fingers clutch the porcelain and he watches as his knuckles turn white as he grips harder, edge back to red as he lets go, repeating the pattern again and again. He looks up, into the mirror, and stares at his own eyes, keeps himself busy with small observations - the cracks in the corner tiles, the piece of plaster that's been falling for months, slowly losing it's battle with gravity. He doesn't know how long he spends there, cowering in the bathroom like a little boy, waiting for the right time to go out.

But it hurts, all of this. He straightens up his shirt, splashes water on his cheeks, pushes back a strand of hair. He plasters on a smile, tries it out for size in the mirror and immediately feels stupid. _When did this happen?_ he wonders. _When did we stop slapping on smiles for the press and start slapping them on for each other?_

Going outside again, Ringo feels himself change posture, preparing himself for the fighting. He prepares for the noise and the casualties and the flying bombs about to be dropped.

His mother used to tell him that as a baby he never used to cry during the air raids over Liverpool, no matter how bad it got - he's damned if he's going to start now.


End file.
